


too much (never enough)

by thethrillof



Category: The Batman (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:20:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethrillof/pseuds/thethrillof





	too much (never enough)

****

The Batman knows more than anyone else. 

Riddler wouldn’t have told him anything if he hadn’t been certain they would both die there, in the crushing depths of the bay; after all, that was the point. The riddle the Batman hadn’t solved—the riddle the Batman hadn’t even fully known was there.

It was the last chance he had, giving his most worthy opponent and inspiration the pieces of the puzzle to understand at the last minute. It would be the Riddler’s choice, the Riddler’s hand guiding him to the rest of the pieces and to put it all together in the end. 

All of them, even the worst, even his father and  _champ,_ even his Julie, even Gorman ruining him. Villains aren’t supposed to be ruined, they’re the worst monsters Gotham knows. But the Batman was there before the Riddler, or at least when Edward Nygma still existed. _Edward’s_ last chance to be known, if not _remembered_. There’s the familiar chill of realizing there was no way out, but Riddler was already numb to it.

And then it turned out the Batman knew more than even he did. He found one last puzzle piece and with it broke everything Riddler thought he knew, and they escaped, and they survived.

And so did the last puzzle piece. 

Julie.

He was enraged by her betrayal, by his own ignorance and idiocy, and the latter was hammered home with the Batman’s words.  

_“Anyone would have realized it. Except you…Champ.”_

Stupid stupid _stupid_ , he’d _given_ the word to the Batman, a scalpel handed by the patient to the doctor for the lobotomy, and it felt just like one, cutting deep into his head and his gut and he was reminded of everything he’d watched be destroyed and dismantled before his eyes. Again and again and again.

…Julie’s long gone by now, of course. Apparently the police had gotten their hands on her, but there wasn’t any evidence—she’d covered her tracks well, and it had been years for the trail of the bio-harddrive that killed the university president to go cold.

Riddler knows he could find her, if he wanted to. And he will. Eventually. But she’s not in Gotham anymore, and he doesn’t have time to hunt her across the country, so he stays in Gotham. 

No time at all. He has to wait and watch to strike back at the Bat for—

_(knowing. understanding. more than you ever did, champ)_

—for...everything.

* * *

The thugs get fidgety, then concerned, and then they leave, after the Rumor vigilante captures them and nearly takes every villain and competent henchmen down in one fell swoop.

He doesn’t bother to stop them. Or rather, to find them again. They make their way out of police custody on their own.

He escapes Arkham and lurks in a hideout. Biding his time. 

Riddler searches and of course finds images of the Batman easily. Bank heists foiled, other villains carted off in more obvious places than he could at the start, when the Riddler made his debut, when the idea of the Batman working with the cops would have been worth the world if any idiot had actually  _believed_  him—

Riddler notices his thoughts wandering and shoves them down. That wasn’t allowed. Because when he does that, he eventually thinks of their next meeting.

That _has_ to happen, for the revenge to be perfect, even if it ends up being through a screen while the dark knight languishes in a trap miles away. He can’t have a problem with it, he can't fail again, but then he thinks of  _champ_ and  _Julie_ and all of his secrets the Batman has tucked away thanks to himself, and he feels as if he’s going to be sick--then he either sleeps for two days straight or doesn’t at all for a week. 

He hates it.

He _hates_ everything, for a while, a burning rage as he lashes out at everything in the hideout but he can’t leave, he doesn’t have a finished plan, he’s too—weak, too stupid, and he’s rapidly coming to a conclusion he’s made before.

There’s nothing left for him.

He’d broken down and worked himself to the bone (or at least to the point anyone could see them through his suit, count his ribs, see his sunken cheeks in his face to replace the stress lines beneath his eyes) to be something in Gotham before ripping Gorman down. That was everything.

Riddler—Edward, even, had taken horrible chances, There was the chance he’d be beaten to a point he couldn’t recover from, when he first played his game with the Batman, or when he went up against Joker and Penguin when they were the city’s top dogs.

And then...there had been a chance the bomb in Gorman’s house wouldn’t be strong enough to blow through the wall and the mirrors and kill him, but a small one. There was a chance he could have fled to the lifeboats when he blew Gorman’s ship, and survive, but just as small, so many years after.

None of those times made him feel so empty. A blaze of glory and hatred, or the knowledge they would fail even after he himself was gone. That had been something.

This is nothing.

_`When you don't know what I am, I am something. When you know what I am, I am nothing.` _

Riddler sits in front of his computer, looks at a picture of the Batman and his own reflection staring back, and he tells them both that Edward Nygma doesn’t exist anymore. There will be no more spilled secrets, no matter how close to death he may be, because it isn’t worth it, being known. Being less of a riddle. He should have cast that off when he altered himself forever with the tattoos on his face. 

The words aren’t worth anything. Nothing is.

The worst person who could ever know his secrets does.

He thinks it over and over, because there’s nothing else to focus on but all of his failures.

The Batman knows everything. Or at least enough. Too much. 

The Riddler curls up in his hideout and waits for whatever ends first; himself, or the world.

* * *

As it turns out, the answer is _neither_. 

The Batman finds him, rotting away alone. Through his own hacking of public cameras, he’s told eventually. Traced, because it’s a familiar code, used over and over again. And Riddler’s caught again, dragged to a hospital, still alive.

He’s beyond anger or horror, or even relief that the Batman doesn’t rub any secrets into his face. There’s just quiet, aching knowledge.

The Riddler lost. Edward Nygma lost. Everything he’s ever done has fallen apart.

The Batman probably knows—idiot of course he does, he was there during Riddler’s deconstruction, all of it, that was the point.

He wonders, starting up at the hospital ceiling, listening to the shuffling of police guards outside, if the Batman finds anything worthwhile in this victory-by-default.


End file.
